LA Stimulus Slowest in nation

These stories of how the stimulus has failed are truly showing the ineptness of the federal and local government. It is amazing that you can have local government a pile of cash and they cannot spend it or spend it poorly. There are not to many companies you can infuse cash into and they will fail. A report out yesterday says that the city of Los Angeles has spent only a quarter of its federal stimulus money though the bulk of the funding was awarded nearly two years ago. This could be because the state is a mess that holding on to any money is a big help. The city has netted more than $630 million in grants but had completed only eight of its 108 projects so far. When pushed the city admitted it was not their fault they blamed staff cuts and initial confusion about the program’s rules have made it tough to move projects quickly. We love this because the money was only supposed to be given to shovel ready projects. Were the projects shovel ready or not? The report said that Los Angeles had spent 13.3 percent of its money. When you compare this to New York who has spent 25 percent of its funding and Chicago had spent 47 percent. The other great thing is they know none of the projects risk losing funding despite the delays.